iclr-related-work

ICLR Related Work

Use this to make the novelty claim robust under ICLR review. ICLR reviewers often know recent OpenReview, arXiv, and workshop work, so the related-work strategy must survive public comparison.

Positioning checks

• Identify the closest prior method, theory result, dataset, benchmark, or analysis paper.
• Separate "uses a similar component" from "solves the same scientific problem."
• Track concurrent arXiv/OpenReview work and discuss it when a reasonable reviewer would expect it.
• Compare against strong open-source and widely used baselines, not only papers that are convenient.
• Explain differences in assumptions, data access, compute budget, evaluation metric, and failure mode.
• Avoid dismissive language; public discussion can amplify careless related-work claims.

Novelty statement

Build the novelty claim as:

Prior work can <capability under stated conditions>.
It does not <specific missing capability or explanation>.
This paper shows <new mechanism/result/evidence>, under <scope>.
The claim is supported by <theory/experiment/artifact>.

Surviving the public comparison

ICLR reviewers and even community members can post a "this is just X" comment that stays online next to your paper forever. The defense is a precise difference axis, decided before submission.

"Just like X" objection	Robust ICLR response	Fragile response
Same architecture	Different objective and what it changes representationally	"Ours is bigger"
Same benchmark	Different question the benchmark now answers	Higher number only
Concurrent arXiv preprint	Dated, scoped distinction, cited generously	Ignoring it and hoping
Reuses a known loss	The new analysis or regime where it behaves differently	Renaming the loss

Worked vignette

A submission proposes a masked-prediction objective for time-series transformers. A reviewer links a recent arXiv paper with a similar mask. Rather than dispute priority, the authors add a paragraph: the prior work masks contiguous spans for forecasting, while this paper masks frequency components and shows the representation transfers across sampling rates, supported by a transfer ablation. The difference axis is "what is masked and which invariance it buys," not "we got there first."

Reviewer-pushback patterns

• "You missed paper Y." Add it, state the axis of difference in one sentence, never dismiss it.
• "Dismissive of prior work." Public threads amplify rudeness; describe prior work in its own terms.
• "Cherry-picked baselines." Compare against the widely used open-source system, not the convenient one.

Output format

[Closest work] <paper/system/benchmark>
[Difference axis] problem / assumption / method / evidence / scale / theory / artifact
[Must-cite items] <recent OpenReview/arXiv/ICLR-adjacent work>
[Novelty risk] low / medium / high
[Revision text] <concise related-work paragraph or bullet>